The Secret of Crickley Hall review

When home is not a haven…

From Roman playwright Plautus, who wrote a proto-haunted house story, to The Amityville Horror, the spooked-up bricks-and-mortar tale has a long tradition. It’s easy to see why it’s become such a staple – home is where we’re supposed to feel safe, after all.

So why is it something of a surprise to find James Herbert writing an entry in the genre? Surely this is typical Herbert territory? Strangely, no. Think Herbert and most of us think visceral horror, all blood and guts. In contrast, the haunted house horror is often about an indistinct threat waiting to strike.

Despite his comments in last month’s SFX that he doesn’t like to follow convention, Herbert is well aware of this. His Crickley Hall, a dull-looking building near the North Devon coast, is a place of threat and menace. Water turns up on the stairs for no apparent reason, the cellar door won’t close, faces appear at its windows.

The apparitions, as new tenants Gabe and Eve Caleigh gradually learn, relate to a fl ood during World War II, which led to the death of evacuees. How did it happen? And what kind of life did they lead at the Hall? What secrets does the house hold? And why won’t the dog settle?

It’s a dark theme echoed in the personal sadness of Eve. The couple have two daughters but (quite literally) lost a son when Eve fell asleep for a few minutes in the park.

It’s a downbeat theme for populist fiction, but Crickley Hall never feels overly gloomy. Slickly constructed entertainment with serious undertones and, most scarily, an evil presence that goes swish-thwack in the night…